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Published in Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 43, No. 5 (2009), pp. 431-457.
Shekhovtsov suggests that there are two types of radical right-wing music that are cultural reflections of the two different political strategies that fascism was forced to adopt in the 'hostile' conditions of the post-war period. While White Noise music is explicitly designed to inspire racially or politically motivated violence and is seen as part and parcel of the revolutionary ultra-nationalist subculture, he suggests that 'metapolitical fascism' has its own cultural reflection in the domain of sound, namely, apoliteic music. This is a type of music whose ideological message contains obvious or veiled references to the core elements of fascism but is simultaneously detached from any practical attempts to realize these elements through political activity. Apoliteic music neither promotes outright violence nor is publicly related to the activities of radical right-wing political organizations or parties. Nor can it be seen as a means of direct recruitment to any political tendency. Shekhovtsov's article focuses on this type of music, and the thesis is tested by examining bands and artists that work in such musical genres as Neo-Folk and Martial Industrial, whose roots lie in cultural revolutionary and national folk traditions.

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Published in Patterns of Prejudice, Vol. 43, No. 5 (2009), pp. 431-457.
Shekhovtsov suggests that there are two types of radical right-wing music that are cultural reflections of the two different political strategies that fascism was forced to adopt in the 'hostile' conditions of the post-war period. While White Noise music is explicitly designed to inspire racially or politically motivated violence and is seen as part and parcel of the revolutionary ultra-nationalist subculture, he suggests that 'metapolitical fascism' has its own cultural reflection in the domain of sound, namely, apoliteic music. This is a type of music whose ideological message contains obvious or veiled references to the core elements of fascism but is simultaneously detached from any practical attempts to realize these elements through political activity. Apoliteic music neither promotes outright violence nor is publicly related to the activities of radical right-wing political organizations or parties. Nor can it be seen as a means of direct recruitment to any political tendency. Shekhovtsov's article focuses on this type of music, and the thesis is tested by examining bands and artists that work in such musical genres as Neo-Folk and Martial Industrial, whose roots lie in cultural revolutionary and national folk traditions.

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Apoliteic music: Neo-Folk, Martial Industrial and

‘metapolitical fascism’

ANTON SHEKHOVTSOV

ABSTRACT Shekhovtsov suggests that there are two types of radical right-wingmusic that are cultural reflections of the two different political strategies that fascismwas forced to adopt in the ‘hostile’ conditions of the post-war period. While WhiteNoise music is explicitly designed to inspire racially or politically motivated violenceand is seen as part and parcel of the revolutionary ultra-nationalist subculture, hesuggests that ‘metapolitical fascism’ has its own cultural reflection in the domain ofsound, namely, apoliteic music. This is a type of music whose ideological messagecontains obvious or veiled references to the core elements of fascism but issimultaneously detached from any practical attempts to realize these elementsthrough political activity. Apoliteic music neither promotes outright violence nor ispublicly related to the activities of radical right-wing political organizations orparties. Nor can it be seen as a means of direct recruitment to any political tendency.Shekhovtsov’s article focuses on this type of music, and the thesis is tested byexamining bands and artists that work in such musical genres as Neo-Folk andMartial Industrial, whose roots lie in cultural revolutionary and national folktraditions.

New war sorrows, new national storm tides will spawn new folk songs as well. */Hans Breuer, 19131

I n 2000, when I was the editor of a small self-published musical magazine,

I received a CD entitled Victory or Death by the Swedish band Folkstorm.2

I would like to thank the musicians Ivan Napreenko and Eric Roger, who advised me andcommented on a draft of this article. I am also grateful to the anonymous reviewers, aswell as to Anna Melyantsev and Vickie Hudson, who were kind enough to proofread.Mistakes, however, are solely my own.1 Translated and quoted in Britta Sweers, ‘The power to influence minds: German folk music during the Nazi era and after’, in Annie Janeiro Randall (ed.), Music, Power, and Politics (New York: Routledge 2005), 65/86 (68).2 Folkstorm, Victory or Death (Northampton: Cold Spring Records 2000). The name of the band is a translation of the German Volkssturm, which was the name of the Nazi militia founded by Adolf Hitler in October 1944.ISSN 0031-322X print/ISSN 1461-7331 online/09/050431-27 # 2009 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/00313220903338990432 Patterns of Prejudice

The CD contained ten tracks of harsh Industrial music and the disc wasdecorated with a Nazi-style Reichsadler atop an empty oak wreath.3 The backcover was ornamented with runes and listed the tracks ‘Feldgeschrei’ (FieldTurmoil), ‘Harsh Discipline’, ‘Propaganda’, ‘We Are the Resistance’, ‘SocialSurgery’, to name but a few. The words of the songs were inaudible, due tothe highly distorted vocals, but everything else vaguely suggested theradical right-wing nature of Folkstorm’s ‘ideology’. Surprisingly, the bandpromised ‘No politics. No religion. No standard’, a prudent statementwritten on the disc itself. If the band disclaims any reference to politics while these signs suggest theopposite, what type of ‘propaganda’ is it? Folkstorm’s message has little todo with that of some of its compatriots like Totenkopf, whose track ‘Can’t BeBeaten’ unreservedly proclaims: ‘Show them where you stand and feel noremorse, my Aryan brother, it’s time for race war.’4 Neither is Folkstorm’smessage a provocation similar to the late Punk Rocker Sid Vicious’snotorious posing in a t-shirt with a swastika on it. If the message is notthe White Noise broadcast of racial hatred,5 or the ‘spit in the face ofbourgeois society’, then what is it? In this article, I argue that there exists aparticular kind of radical right-wing music that does not promote outrightviolence, is not related to the activities of political organizations or parties,and is not a means of recruitment to any political tendency. Therefore, I takeFolkstorm’s ‘No politics’ statement seriously, although I hope to reconcep-tualize it in a way that avoids any futile attempt to drain the clearly right-wing message of its essence. I refer to this music as ‘apoliteic’ (a termexplained below), and this article will analyse its nature and significance byconsidering two musical genres, namely Neo-Folk and Martial Industrial,that are most often used by bands and artists for disseminating an apoliteicmessage. I hope to demonstrate that apoliteic music and White Noise arecultural reflections of the two different political strategies that fascism wasforced to follow in the ‘hostile’ conditions of the post-war period. Before I proceed, it must be noted that neither Neo-Folk nor MartialIndustrial can be considered ‘fascist musical genres’. Unlike White Noise,which refers specifically to ideologically motivated music, these two genresare first and foremost typological constructs that embrace particular kinds ofcombined sounds. Indeed, whether or not Neo-Folk or Martial Industrial canbe equated with fascist or neo-Nazi propaganda has been hotly debatedsince the mid-1990s when a number of bands playing in these genres started

3 The Reichsadler (imperial eagle) is a German national insignia. In 1933 the Nazis introduced the image of an eagle atop an oak wreath with a swastika at its centre.4 Totenkopf, ‘Can’t Be Beaten’, on Various Artists, White Pride World Wide III (Stockholm: Nordland Records 1996).5 ‘White Noise’ is the term that has been used for neo-Nazi rock music since the early 1980s. This type of music is explicitly designed to inspire racially or politically motivated violence. ANTON SHEKHOVTSOV 433

to receive*due to their extensive use of fascist imagery*attention from left-

/ /

wing journalists as well as attacks by anti-fascist groups. On several

occasions, anti-fascist protests, petitions and pickets were supported bythe authorities who banned performances of particular Neo-Folk/MartialIndustrial bands. In 2004 the major Austrian Martial Industrial act, DerBlutharsch, had to cancel a performance in Israel due to protests by, amongothers, the Israeli cabinet member Natan Sharansky, the Knesset memberYossi Sarid, the mayor of Tel Aviv Ron Huldai and the Anti-DefamationLeague. The following year, the most famous Neo-Folk band, Death in June,lost the right to sell its album Rose Clouds of Holocaust in Germany after aninvestigation conducted by the Bundesprüfstelle für jugendgefährdendeMedien (BPjM, Federal Department for Media Harmful to Young People).6Neither of these bands is part of the White Noise scene, but bothembrace*as I shall argue below*explicit elements of the fascist / /

Weltanschauung.

Major terms and concepts

There are several terms that journalists, public officials and scholars use torefer to artists or bands that*from the observers’ point of view*perform / /

music impregnated with fascist or extreme right-wing ideas. Some of these

are umbrella terms that encompass different musical genres, while othersrefer to specific ones. The term ‘White Noise’ originates from White Noise Records, a label thatreleased Skrewdriver’s single ‘White Power’ in 1983. Skrewdriver was aBritish band that openly promoted revolutionary ultra-nationalism throughtheir records, and their performances sometimes turned into riots of neo-Nazi skinheads. Screwdriver’s late leader Ian Stuart was a member of theBritish National Front (NF), while the band itself was closely associated withboth the NF and the British National Party (BNP). In fact, Skrewdriver mightbe considered ‘the musical wing’ of the NF, as it raised funds for theorganization and helped recruit new members. Moreover, in 1987, Stuartfounded the Blood & Honour network that promoted ultra-nationalistbands, organized their concerts and served as a nexus for neo-Nazi

6 Death in June, Rose Clouds of Holocaust (London: New European Recordings 1995). The BPjM found that the title song from the album cast doubt on the occurrence of the Holocaust. The lyrics in question are as follows: ‘Rose clouds of Holocaust/ Rose clouds of lies/ Rose clouds of bitter/ Bitter, bitter lies’. Although in his explanatory memorandum Douglas Pearce, the man behind Death in June, stated that he ‘[did] not deny the existence of The Holocaust’, the record was banned: posted on the Death in June website, 14 February 2006, at www.deathinjune.org/modules/news/ article.php?storyid70 (viewed 8 August 2009).434 Patterns of Prejudice

skinheads in Europe and the United States.7 Since Skrewdriver played a typeof Punk Rock music known as Street Punk or Oi!,8 the term ‘White Noise’originally referred to Punk Rock acts that propagated extreme right-wingideas.9 Currently, due to the generic variety of bands that play at Blood &Honour concerts, one can apply this term to any aggressive rock music thatis imbued with an openly fascist or racist message. It is crucially important to highlight two features of White Noise. First, thistype of music is characterized by overt racism or revolutionary ultra-nationalism. White Noise bands do not veil their messages and some of thebands’ names*not to mention the albums and song titles*speak for / /

themselves: Race War, Totenkopf, Final Solution, Jew Slaughter, Legion 88,Konkwista 88, Angry Aryans, Brigada NS, RaHoWa etc.10 Second, WhiteNoise is associated with either direct violence against an Other or thepolitical cause, however marginal, that inspires it. It is quite often the casethat White Noise musicians do not conceal their membership in revolu-tionary ultra-nationalist groupuscules, larger organizations or even electoralparties. As mentioned above, Skrewdriver worked alongside the NF, whilethe Romanian band Brigada de Asalt (The Assault Brigade) is an integralpart of the neo-Nazi organization Noua Dreaptă (New Right), presumablybacked by the Romanian radical right-wing Partidul Noua Generatie (NewGeneration Party). A large number of White Noise bands appear on the so-called ‘schoolyard’ CDs compiled and released by the radical right-wingNationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands (National Democratic Party ofGermany) for free distribution among German youth. Surprisingly, the term ‘White Noise’ does not seem to cover Black Metalbands that promote ultra-nationalist ideas. In this case, journalists and

7 After Stuart’s death in a car crash in 1993, the network was taken over by Combat 18, a neo-Nazi paramilitary group. See Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity (New York: New York University Press 2002), 195.8 It is important to note that Oi! was originally associated with working-class left-wing populism, but later was taken up by ideologically diverse bands, ranging from anti- fascist and radical left-wing to fascist and racist ones.9 See Nick Lowles and Steve Silver (eds), White Noise: Inside the International Nazi Skinhead Scene (London: Searchlight 1998); John M. Cotter, ‘Sounds of hate: White Power rock and roll and the neo-Nazi skinhead subculture’, Terrorism and Political Violence, vol. 11, no. 2, 1999, 111/40. Due to the similarity in form and content, the term ‘White Noise’ is synonymous with the term ‘White Power’ and they are generally used interchangeably. See also Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, ch. 10 (‘White Noise and Black Metal’), 193/212; Robert Futrell, Pete Simi and Simon Gottschalk, ‘Understanding music in movements: the White Power music scene’, Sociological Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 2, 2006, 275/304; and Ugo Corte and Bob Edwards, ‘White Power music and the mobilization of racist social movements’, Music and Arts in Action (online journal), vol. 1, no. 1, 2008, 4/20, at www.musicandartsinaction.net/ index.php/maia/article/view/whitepowermusic/9 (viewed 8 August 2009).10 ‘88’ stands for ‘Heil Hitler’, as ‘H’ is the eighth letter in the Latin alphabet, ‘NS’ is an acronym for National Socialism, and ‘RaHoWa’ stands for ‘racial holy war’. ANTON SHEKHOVTSOV 435

scholars use the term ‘National Socialist Black Metal’ (or simply NSBM) torefer to the same White Noise socio-political message when it is disseminatedby Black Metal music.11 Another umbrella term for radical right-wing music is simply ‘Right-WingRock’. This term gained currency in Germany (Rechtsrock) among left-wingactivists, scholars and government institutions such as the Bundesamt fürVerfassungsschutz (BfV, Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution)and the BPjM,12 but is used in English-language academic works as well.13The BPjM states that, ‘with the exception of jazz and classical music, there isno musical genre that is not infiltrated by right-wing extremist organizationsand is not a medium for extreme right-wing content’.14 It lists eight musicalgenres that are collectively identified as Rechtsrock (Right-Wing Rock):skinhead bands (obviously not a genre, but apparently the BPjM meantWhite Noise here), NSBM, Hatecore, Techno Music, Hip-Hop, Folk, singer-songwriters (again, not a genre, but individuals who compose and performtheir own works, usually accompanied solely by acoustic guitar) and Neo-Folk. According to the German office, it is these genres that are commonlyused by musicians who promote ‘the glorification of National Socialism, therepresentation of Adolf Hitler and his party comrades as role models (ortragic heroes)’, and who seek to ‘instil racial hatred, [or] call for violenceagainst foreigners, Jews or those who disagree with them’.15 Such ananalysis suffers from one grave shortcoming. ‘Right-Wing Rock’ per se is anover-extended term, and the BPjM interprets it too narrowly for it to beapplied to the wide range of genuine right-wing music. To be a right-wingeror even a fascist one does not necessarily have to glorify Nazism or seek to

instil racial hatred. The BPjM obviously hits its target with White Noise andNSBM, but by including Neo-Folk*even if we assume it is only right-wing /

Neo-Folk acts*within a narrow definition of Rechtsrock, it risks missing the

/

mark.16 In order to explain this crucial distinction, we need to consider two

major concepts: fascism and apoliteia. In this article, I subscribe, methodologically, to a dominant school within‘fascist studies’ that posits fascist ideology as a form of revolutionary ultra-nationalism.17 This approach is most extensively elaborated by Roger Griffinwho defines ‘fascism’ as

a revolutionary species of political modernism originating in the early twentieth

century whose mission is to combat the allegedly degenerative forces of contemporary history (decadence) by bringing about an alternative modernity and temporality (a ‘new order’ and a ‘new era’) based on the rebirth, or palingenesis, of the nation.18

This interpretation of fascism ‘implies an organic conception of the nation

that is not necessarily equated with the nationstate or its existing /

boundaries, and which is indebted to the modern notion of the sovereignty

of the ‘‘people’’ as a discrete supra-individual historical entity and actor’.19The excessive mythologization of the nation as well as the impetuous thrusttowards its palingenesis result in fascism having the appearance of apolitical religion. As such, fascism generates its own culturally definedcollective behaviour that possesses specific characteristics, among which‘adventure, heroism, the spirit of sacrifice, mass rituals, the cult of martyrs,the ideals of war and sports [and] fanatical devotion to the leader’ are most

16 There is a distinction in German law between extremism and radicalism. Criticism of

capitalism, and fundamental doubts about the structure of Germany’s economic and social order are perceived as radical but not extremist. In its turn, extremism is identified as an attempt to undermine the foundations of the German Basic Law, namely, the liberal democratic order. While extremism*/whether right-wing or left- wing*/is unlawful in Germany, radical political beliefs have a legitimate place in Germany’s pluralistic society. See Heinz Fromm (ed.), Aufgaben, Befugnisse, Grenzen (Cologne: Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, Presse- und Öffentlichkeitsarbeit 2002), 25. The distinction between extremism and radicalism can help explain why the BPjM ‘extremizes’ Rechtsrock.17 See Roger Griffin (ed.), International Fascism: Theories, Causes and the New Consensus (London: Arnold 1998).18 Roger Griffin, Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2007), 181.19 Roger Griffin, ‘Grey cats, blue cows, and wide awake groundhogs: notes towards the development of a ‘‘deliberative ethos’’’, in Roger Griffin, Werner Loh and Andreas Umland (eds), Fascism Past and Present, West and East: An International Debate on Concepts and Cases in the Comparative Study of the Extreme Right (Stuttgart and Hanover: ibidem 2006), 428. ANTON SHEKHOVTSOV 437

prominent.20 These features are by no means the sine qua non of fascism butthey are indicative of fascism’s commitment to the aestheticization ofpolitical life, extreme activism and spectacular politics, and hence directlylinked to its tendency to manifest itself as a form of political religion. Although fascism is an enfant terrible of the twentieth century, its socio-political lifespan is not bounded by Mussolini’s and Hitler’s regimes. Afterthe joint forces of the Soviet Union and the western liberal democracies hadcrushed fascism’s war machine, it was forced to evolve or, rather, mutate intothree distinct forms. The groups that still wanted to participate in thepolitical process had to dampen their revolutionary ardour rather drama-tically and translate it ‘as far as possible into the language of liberaldemocracy’.21 This strategy gave birth to new radical right-wing parties thathave become electorally successful in several countries over the last twenty-five years. Revolutionary ultra-nationalists, on the other hand, retreated tothe margins of socio-political life and took the form of small groupusculesthat kept alive ‘the illusory prospect of having a revolutionary impact onsociety’.22 The third form of post-war fascism was conceptualized in theteachings of two fascist philosophers, Armin Mohler and Julius Evola. In Diekonservative Revolution in Deutschland 19181932, published in 1950,23 Mohler /

argued that, since fascist revolution was indefinitely postponed due to thepolitical domination of liberal democracy, true ‘conservative revolutionaries’found themselves in an ‘interregnum’ that would, however, spontaneouslygive way to the spiritual grandeur of national reawakening. This theme ofright-wing ‘inner emigration’ was echoed by Evola in his Cavalcare la tigre(Ride the Tiger), published in 1961.24 Evola acknowledged that, while ‘thetrue State, the hierarchical and organic State’, lay in ruins, there was ‘no oneparty or movement with which one can unreservedly agree and for whichone can fight with absolute devotion, in defence of some higher idea’. Thus,l’uomo differenziato should practise ‘disinterest, detachment from everythingthat today constitutes ‘‘politics’’’, and this was exactly the principle that

Evola called ‘apoliteia’. While apoliteia does not necessarily imply abstentionfrom socio-political activities, an apoliteic individual, an ‘aristocrat of thesoul’ (to cite the subtitle of the English translation of Cavalcare la tigre),should always embody an ‘irrevocable internal distance from this [modern]society and its ‘‘values’’’.25 The concepts of interregnum and apoliteia had a major impact on thedevelopment of the ‘metapolitical fascism’ of the European New Right(ENR),26 a movement that consists of clusters of think tanks, conferences,journals, institutes and publishing houses that try*following the strategy of /

and make it more susceptible to a non-democratic mode of politics.27 Like

Mohler and Evola, the adherents of the ENR believe that one day theallegedly decadent era of egalitarianism and cosmopolitanism will give wayto ‘an entirely new culture based on organic, hierarchical, supra-individual,heroic values’.28 It is important to emphasize, however, that ‘metapoliticalfascism’ focuses*almost exclusively*on the battle for hearts and minds / /

rather than for immediate political power. Following Evola’s precepts, theENR tries to distance itself from both historical and contemporary fascistparties and regimes. As biological racism became totally discredited in thepost-war period, and it was ‘no longer possible to speak publicly ofperceived difference through the language of ‘‘old racism’’’,29 ENR thinkerspointed to the insurmountable differences between peoples, not in biologicalor ethnic terms but rather in terms of culture.30 They abandoned overt fascist

ultra-nationalism ‘in the name of a Europe restored to the (essentially

mythic) homogeneity of its component primordial cultures’.31 How do fascism’s strategies in the ‘hostile’ post-war environment relate tomusic? While there can be no purely musical reflection of right-wing partypolitics, White Noise has nonetheless become part and parcel of therevolutionary ultra-nationalist subculture. And I suggest that ‘metapoliticalfascism’ has its own cultural manifestation in the domain of sound, namely,apoliteic music. This is a type of music in which the ideological messagecontains obvious or veiled references to the core elements of fascism but issimultaneously detached from any practical attempt to implement thatmessage through political activity. Apoliteic music is characterized by highlyelitist stances and disdain for ‘banal petty materialism’. Both apoliteic artistsand their conscientious fans appear to be self-styled ‘aristocrats of thesoul’,32 united in their implicit knowledge that the imperium internum is thereflection of a forthcoming new era of national and spiritual palingenesis.Lost in contemplation of this utopian future, they perceive the currentsituation as the interregnum. Regardless of the extent to which thecontemporary Europeanized world is actually decadent or spirituallyimpoverished, it will always pale beside the imaginary fascist ‘brave newworld’. The concept of apoliteia correlates with one more important, indeedcrucial, notion, namely, the Waldgang. Ten years before the appearance ofEvola’s largely pessimistic Cavalcare la tigre, Ernst Jünger published the essayDer Waldgang,33 which anticipated Evola’s reflections on apoliteia.34 Jünger,the author of the critically acclaimed In Stahlgewittern (1920)*translated into /

English as Storm of Steel*and Der Arbeiter (The Worker) (1932), celebrated

/

war, in which he saw embedded the metaphysical process of the forging of a

31 Roger Griffin, ‘Fascism’s new faces (and new facelessness) in the ‘‘post-fascist’’ epoch’, in Griffin, Loh and Umland (eds), Fascism Past and Present, 51.32 One should distinguish between common fans who appreciate the actual musical side of the art under scrutiny, while rejecting or simply ignoring its ideological message (if any), and conscientious fans who are drawn both by the art and its ideological message, enthusiastically embraced.33 Ernst Jünger, Der Waldgang (Frankfurt on Main: Klostermann 1951). References here are to the abridged English translation: Ernst Jünger, ‘Retreat into the forest’, Confluence, vol. 3, no. 2, 1954, 127/42 (Confluence was edited in 1954 by its founder Henry Kissinger).34 Evola was an admirer of Jünger, and his reflections on the latter’s Der Arbeiter were published as Julius Evola, L’ ‘Operaio’ nel pensiero di Ernst Jünger (Rome: Armando Armando Editore 1960). It is debatable whether Evola’s speculations on apoliteia were actually inspired by Jünger’s Der Waldgang, but the Italian baron was known for apparently hijacking (plagiarizing?) the ideas of other authors. For example, Evola’s 1928 work Imperialismo pagano drew heavily on Reghini’s 1914 essay of the same name: Arturo Reghini, ‘Imperialismo pagano’, Salamandra, no. 14, 1914. A year after Evola had published his Imperialismo pagano, he accused Reghini of being a member of a Masonic lodge (Mussolini dissolved and banned Freemasonry in Italy in 1925), and tried to sue him on those grounds.440 Patterns of Prejudice

new civilization.35 He therefore sympathized with the Nazi regime, which

seemed to be the embodied instrument for setting such a process in motion.However, as Griffin notes, Jünger ‘stayed aloof from politics, reluctant toabandon the heights of his metapolitical outposts’,36 although the regimeactually benefitted from his literary works that legitimated fascism in thecultural sphere. In his post-war Der Waldgang, Jünger severely criticized thespiritually deprived Titanic that was the modern age, seized by ‘liquidations,rationalizations, socializations, electrifications and pulverizations’ thatrequired ‘neither culture nor character’.37 Nonetheless, he urged freeindividuals to ‘stay on shipboard [sic]’ (that is, to use technological progressto their advantage) and, at the same time, ‘retreat into the forest’ (Waldgang).For him, the forest was a symbol of ‘supratemporal Being’ or ‘the Ego’ and,by ‘retreating’ into it, ‘the wanderer in the forest’ (Waldgänger) could resistthe moral corruption of the interregnum.38 Confronted with ‘demoniacforces of our civilization’, l’uomo differenziato rejects the apparent choice(‘either howl with the wolves or fight them’) and finds an alternative in ‘hisexistence as an individual, in his own Being which remains unshaken’.39Remarkably, Jünger argued that the

retreat into the forest (Waldgang) is not . . . directed against the world of technology, although this is a temptation, particularly for those who strive to regain a myth. Undoubtedly, mythology will appear again. It is always present and arises in a propitious hour like a treasure coming to the surface. But man does not return to the realm of myth, he re-encounters it when the age is out of joint and in the magic circle of extreme danger.40

35 Jünger experienced war firsthand: during the First World War he served in the Imperial German army and returned from the battlefield decorated with the Iron Cross First Class and the Pour le Mérite, which was the highest military order of the German empire.36 Griffin, Modernism and Fascism, 165.37 Jünger, ‘Retreat into the forest’, 129. For Griffin’s extensive use of the metaphor of the Titanic to evoke the modernist sense of a ‘new beginning’ or Aufbruch in history, see his introduction to Modernism and Fascism.38 Jünger, ‘Retreat into the forest’, 141.39 Ibid., 135. Here one may want to consider the possible influence of Martin Heidegger, Holzwege (Woodpaths) (Frankfurt on Main: Klostermann 1950) on the development of Jünger’s concept of the Waldgang. On Heidegger, in the context of the current study, see Matthew Feldman, ‘Between Geist and Zeitgeist: Martin Heidegger as ideologue of ‘‘metapolitical fascism’’’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, vol. 6, no. 2, 2005, 175/98.40 Ibid., 132 (emphasis in the original). This vision of redemptive myth resurfacing in a moment of danger is reminiscent of Walter Benjamin’s statement in his ‘Theses on the philosophy of history. VI’ (unpublished when Jünger was writing) that the truly and, hence, redemptive historical engagement with reality means to ‘seize hold of a memory as it flashes up at a moment of danger’: Walter Benjamin, ‘Theses on the philosophy of history’, in Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt, trans. from the German by Harry Zohn (London: Fontana 1992), 247. ANTON SHEKHOVTSOV 441

While the concept of the Waldgang is clearly another aspect of apoliteia (orperhaps the reverse of it), apoliteic artists perceive themselves as ‘wanderersin the forest’. They necessarily allude to myths*whether pagan or, less /

often, Christian*but such allusions do not represent an attempt to return to

/

a mythologized past. Nor can the positions of these artists be construed as

anti-modern, let alone anti-technological. On the contrary, they choose ‘boththe forest and the ship’,41 as they oppose the decadent interregnum with theirinner commitment to a re-enchanted alternative modernity of the rebornnation, heroic individualism and a subjectively interpreted ethic of militaryhonour.

Neo-Folk and Martial Industrial: the origins

Arguably the most obvious examples of apoliteic music*which reveals itself

/

through music, lyrics, band names, album and song titles, cover art, style ofdress as well as being subtly articulated in live performances*can be found /

in certain Neo-Folk and Martial Industrial works.42 From a ‘technical’ point

of view, the two genres may seem musically different. The typical Neo-Folkartists sing melancholic ‘folkish’ songs to the accompaniment of acousticguitars, violins and piano, while typical Martial Industrial acts create darkbombastic collages that usually feature various samples of military marches,battle noises or war-oriented speeches. The genres correlate*hardly /

surprisingly*with Evola’s interpretation of the idealized origin of now

/

desacralized modern western music. From his point of view, as expounded

in Cavalcare la tigre, ‘the most modern western music has been characterizedby increasing estrangement from its lineage, both the melodramatic,melodic, heroically romantic and pretentious line (the last of which istypically represented by Wagnerism), and the tragic-pathetic line (we needonly refer to Beethoven’s principal ideas)’.43 Although it’s unlikely thatEvola himself would have enjoyed most extreme samples of MartialIndustrial music, it is significant that both genres*no matter how ‘techni- /

cally’ different they are*fit his description.

/

Apoliteic music is organically accommodated within Neo-Folk and Martial

Industrial since their roots lie in revolutionary and national culturaltraditions. While Martial Industrial clearly descends from Industrial music,Peter Webb and Stéphane François correctly assert that Neo-Folk, too, is an

41 Jünger, ‘Retreat into the forest’, 132 (emphasis in the original).

42 Again, it should be stressed that I neither equate apoliteic music with Neo-Folk and Martial Industrial nor identify them as ‘fascist genres’. ‘Metapolitical fascism’ and the two genres, as musical styles, do overlap*/to a lesser extent in the case of Neo- Folk*/but Neo-Folk/Martial Industrial artists can create non-apoliteic art, while ‘metapolitical fascists’ can find other musical means to communicate their message.43 Evola, Cavalcare la tigre, 139.442 Patterns of Prejudice

emanation of Industrial music.44 Industrial can be briefly and inevitably

inadequately characterized as a fusion of Rock and Electronic music, mixedwith avant-garde experiments and Punk provocation.45 Although the genrewas ‘genetically’ born in the mid-1970s with the establishment of theIndustrial Records label, Karen Collins has traced the first usage of the term‘industrial’ as applied to music back to the preface of Francesco BalillaPratella’s Musica Futurista of 1912.46 Luigi Russolo, another Futuristmusician and Pratella’s colleague, was the author of a 1913 manifestoentitled L’Art des bruits (The art of noises) in which one apparently finds thefirst conceptualization of Martial Industrial. Considering the variety ofnatural and artificial noises that could be employed for the projected‘revolution of music’, Russolo wrote: ‘And we must not forget the very newnoises of Modern Warfare. The poet Marinetti, in a letter from the Bulgariantrenches of Ariadnople described to me . . . in his new futurist style, theorchestra of a great battle.’47 Although Russolo’s Futurism did not draw himto Italian Fascism, Pratella and Filippo Marinetti did become*like many /

other Futurists*ardent supporters of Mussolini’s regime.48 Obviously,

/

modern Industrial music has been influenced by other cultural and musicaltrends (Dadaism, musique concrète, Pop, Rock, Electronic and Post-Punk), butits emergence (or rather re-emergence) in the mid-1970s was a result of the‘spiritual’ evolution of Futurist music. Apart from general influences that shaped Industrial music, Neo-Folkdraws heavily on national folk traditions. The first point of reference is awave of the so-called ‘roots’ revivals that swept the Europeanized world afew decades after the Second World War, reaching their apogee in the 1960sand 1970s. Several major features characterized roots revivals: first, therevitalization and imitation of national traditional music; second, the

44 Peter Webb, Exploring the Networked Worlds of Popular Music: Milieu Cultures (London and New York: Routledge 2007), 60; Stéphane François, La Musique europaı¨enne: ethnographie politique d’une subculture de droite (Paris: Harmattan 2006).45 The history of Industrial music is well described in three non-academic books: Simon Ford, Wreckers of Civilisation: The Story of Coum Transmissions & Throbbing Gristle (London: Black Dog 1999); Vivian Vale and Andrea Juno (eds), Re/Search #6/7: Industrial Culture Handbook (San Francisco: V/Search 1983); and David Keenan, England’s Hidden Reverse: Coil, Current 93, Nurse with Wound: A Secret History of the Esoteric Underground (London: SAF Publishing 2003). For a scholarly view of the history of Industrial music, see Karen E. Collins, ‘‘‘The Future Is Happening Already’’: Industrial Music, Dystopia and the Aesthetic of the Machine’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Liverpool, 2002; and Paul Hegarty, Noise/Music: A History (New York: Continuum 2007).46 Collins, ‘‘‘The Future Is Happening Already’’’, 9.47 Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noise (Futurist Manifesto, 1913), trans. from the Italian by Robert Filliou (New York: Ubu Classics 2004), 7. L’Art des bruits was written in the form of a letter to ‘Balilla Pratella, great futurist musician’.48 The ideological correlation between Futurism and Fascism is the subject of a thorough analysis in Griffin, Modernism and Fascism. ANTON SHEKHOVTSOV 443

adaptation of folk music to modern musical genres, especially to Rock and

Pop; and, third, the politicization of folk music. As Britta Sweers argues, ‘inthe context of the various twentieth-century folk revivals, the terminology[folk music] was always combined with political or ideological meanings, inparticular with the idea of traditional or folk music as a counterpoint topopular (i.e., commercial) music’.49 Politically, most folk bands and singer-songwriters were influenced by left-wing ideas while ‘the events of May1968’ had a strong impact on the development of roots revivals. The left-wing orientation of folk artists was particularly evident in Germany, wherethe roots revival encountered a problem of legitimacy since Volkmusik was‘destroyed’ by ‘the ‘‘kurzbehoste’’ [those dressed in short trousers] of theGerman youth groups and the armies of National Socialist soldiers andsupporters’ through their ‘aggressive usage of the songs and the tradition’.50 Although the US and European roots revivals have*to a certain /

degree* triggered the emergence of Neo-Folk in the 1980s, apoliteic Neo-

/

Folk bands apparently draw inspiration not from the 1970s left-wing protestfolk songs, but rather from the previous folk revivals that took place at theend of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. Theserevivals varied throughout European countries. In Britain, for example, thephenomenon was associated with folk song collectors such as Cecil Sharp,Ralph Vaughan Williams and Lucy Broadwood, who endeavoured*quite /

successfully*to raise public appreciation of folk music and to ‘secure’ a

/

distinctively English folk tradition.51 In Germany, the roots revival unfolded

within various clubs and movements such as Der Wandervogel (the bird ofpassage). This movement began in 1896 ‘in reaction to aspects of bourgeoislife and music aesthetics and presented a counterculture to the ubiquitous,harmony-singing Männergesangsvereine (‘‘male choral societies’’) of the late-nineteenth century’;52 it ‘aimed to reclaim a national identity for Germany,based upon its songs’.53 In Italy, one of the most famous folk song collectorswas none other than Francesco Balilla Pratella, who withdrew from theFuturist movement after the First World War and dedicated the rest of hislife to the traditional music of his native Romagna, ‘much to Marinetti’s

49 Britta Sweers, Electric Folk: The Changing Face of English Traditional Music (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press 2005), 25.50 Kirsten Kearney, ‘Constructing the Nation: The Role of the Ballad in Twentieth Century German National Identity with Special Reference to Scotland’, Ph.D. thesis, University of Stirling, 2007, 194. On the use of German folk music by the Nazis, see also Sweers, ‘The power to influence minds’.51 See Richard Sykes, ‘The evolution of Englishness in the English folksong revival, 1890/1914’, Folk Music Journal, vol. 6, no. 4, 1993, 446/90; and Georgina Boyes, The Imagined Village: Culture, Ideology, and the English Folk Revival (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press 1993).52 Sweers, ‘The power to influence minds’, 67.53 Kearney, ‘Constructing the Nation’, 140.444 Patterns of Prejudice

disgust’.54 Revealingly, by moving from Futurist music to Italian traditional

folk, Pratella anticipated the 1980s rise of Neo-Folk out of the Industrialmilieu.

* *‘Europe is dead’ ‘Looking for Europe’ ‘Europe, awake!’ / /

Europe*or rather a highly mythologized and idealized concept of

/

Europe*is central to the ethos of apoliteic music. In fact, Europe has long /

been a popular object of mythologization.55 A modernist statue in front of

the European Parliament in Strasbourg features Europa as a woman sittingon a bull. The statue represents the ancient Greek myth of the abduction ofEuropa by lascivious Zeus disguised as a white bull. Over the centuries themyth has been the subject of thousands of works of art, but in modern timesthe idea of Europe has spawned even more interpretations: a bastion ofChristianity, a part of the Free World, a vanguard of civilization, a place tornbetween the capitalist and socialist powers or, most recently, one divided byformer US President George W. Bush into the Iraq-war-friendly ‘newEurope’ and the ‘old Europe’ that doubted the validity of the militarycampaign. These are mythological constructs applied to one and the samegeographical region. Fascists, or Eurofascists, have constructed their ownmythological Europe as a ‘homogeneous cultural entity or primordial racialcommunity’.56 With regard to radical right-wing music, one can distinguishthe three main lyrical and artistic themes alluded to in the title of this section:the death of Europe; Europe in the interregnum; and the rebirth of Europe. Seen from the point of view of the Waldgänger, there are several causes ofEurope’s death. It was, first of all, a consequence of the establishment of theNew World Order, marked by the domination of liberal democratic valuesand the rejection of the fascist European myths. In an interview with theAnglo-Dutch apoliteic band H.E.R.R., one of the vocalists, Troy Southgate,who is also a prolific New Right author, states:

In Europe . . . the twin profanities of Americanisation and liberal democracy are

eating away at the very soul of our civilisation. Individualism has replaced

54 Benjamin Thorn, ‘Francesco Balilla Pratella (1880/1955)’, in Larry Sitsky (ed.), Music of the Twentieth-century Avant-garde: A Biocritical Sourcebook (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press 2002), 380.55 See Kevin Wilson and Jan van der Dussen (eds), The History of the Idea of Europe (London and New York: Routledge 1995); and Peter H. Gommers, Europe, What’s in a Name (Leuven: Leuven University Press 2001).56 On the Eurofascists’ idea of Europe, see Roger Griffin, ‘‘‘Europe for the Europeans’’: fascist myths of the European new order 1922/1992’, in Roger Griffin, A Fascist Century: Essays by Roger Griffin, ed. Matthew Feldman (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2008), 132/80. ANTON SHEKHOVTSOV 445

individuality, economics are taking priority over ideas, and the mass consumer society rides roughshod over polytheism, identity and diversity.57

If liberal democracy is the enemy of European cultural identity, interpreted

in fascist terms, then the 1945 Yalta conference*where the leaders of Britain, /

the United States and the USSR discussed the post-war reorganization ofEurope*was clearly the time-point of the funeral march. Death in June /

makes this message clear:

Sons of Europe Sick with liberalism Sons of Europe Chained with capitalism . . . On a marble slab in Yalta Mother Europe Was Slaughtered.58

Europe’s death (or, perhaps, its ‘mere’ decline) is also linked to thegrowing multiculturalism of European states. In his analysis of ‘the Euro-Pagan scene’, Stéphane François argues that such bands ‘condemn multi-cultural society, seen as the manifestation of the decline of European valuesand the victory of corrupting Western universalism’.59 Josef Maria Klumb ofVon Thronstahl, one of the most influential and prolific apoliteic bands,unambiguously corroborates this notion:

The so-called ‘multi-culturalism’ . . . creates a mixed population without any real

culture.. . . the ‘clash of cultures’ has already caused a lot of damage in big

57 Malahki Thorn, ‘H.E.R.R. interview: hopes die in winter’, Heathen Harvest (webzine), 4 March 2005, at www.heathenharvest.com/article.php?story20050304171250371 (viewed 12 August 2009). On Troy Southgate, see Graham D. Macklin, ‘Co-opting the counter culture: Troy Southgate and the National Revolutionary Faction’, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 39, no. 3, 2005, 301/26. Southgate frequently contributes vocals and/ or lyrics to various apoliteic bands, including Seelenlicht, Horologium, The Days of the Trumpet Call and Sagittarius.58 Death in June, ‘Sons of Europe’, on Burial (London: Leprosy Discs 1984).59 Stéphane François, ‘The Euro-Pagan scene: between paganism and radical right’, trans. from the French by Ariel Godwin, Journal for the Study of Radicalism, vol. 1, no. 2, 2007, 35/54 (48). Actually, my concept of apoliteic music is very close to François’s ‘Euro-Pagan’ music, characterized by ‘praise of an ethnic European paganism, often marked by conservative revolutionary ideas’ (37). I don’t use François’s term (even inevitably redefined) in this article because not all apoliteic musicians and bands are adherents of heathen cults. Some have declared themselves to be Christians, while others are followers of the esoteric teaching of ‘integral Traditionalism’ or atheists. However, the musical acts mentioned in both articles coincide to a considerable degree.446 Patterns of Prejudice

German cities, where you can see and feel the spenglerian ‘decline of the west’ simply by taking a walk through some streets.60

The Russian musician Ilya Kolerov (Wolfsblood) echoes Klumb’s concern forEurope’s cultural integrity. While he maintains that he likes ‘neithercommunism, nor Nazism, nor modern Jewish democracy’, Kolerov openlyadmits: ‘Maybe, I’m racist partly. I don’t want Moscow to be an Asian city. Iwant to see pure French or British on the streets of London or Paris.’61Kolerov’s argument draws on the ‘new racist’ theories of ethnopluralismadvanced by the European New Right and propagated in Russia by the‘metapolitical fascist’ philosopher Aleksandr Dugin.62 The ethnopluralisttheory champions ethno-cultural pluralism globally but is critical of culturalpluralism (multiculturalism) in any given society. By distorting a democraticcall for the right of all peoples and cultures to be different,63 the theorythereby attempts to legitimize European exclusionism and the rejection ofmiscegenation. In ethnopluralist terms, the ‘‘‘mixing of cultures’’ and thesuppression of ‘‘cultural differences’’ would correspond to the intellectualdeath of humanity and would perhaps even endanger the control mechan-isms that ensure its biological survival’.64 Toroidh, one of Henrik N. Björkk’s bands (apart from the now defunctFolkstorm), musically elaborates another explanation for Europe’s death inthe European Trilogy. In an interview conducted by the British magazineCompulsion Online following the release of Europe Is Dead, the second part ofthe trilogy, Björkk tells readers: ‘The European Trilogy is all based upon thechaotic 20th century*the world wars, the ethnic conflicts and the dream of a /

united Europe. The Europe that conquered the old world, and colonized the

new, and that passed away with the Second World War.’65 Björkk ispresumably raising the spectre of the Eurofascist view of the lost ‘Europeancivil war’ of the twentieth century, lost not to one European country oranother but to non-fascists. In any case, Björkk’s ‘dream of a united Europe’clearly has nothing to do with either the European Economic Community orthe European Union but is, rather, of a united fascist Europe, a notion thatwas extremely popular within certain Italian Fascist and Nazi circles.66 The vision of a dead Europe is articulated not only in lyrics, song titles andartists’ interviews, but is also graphically expressed in album covers andartwork. In most cases the theme of Europe’s death is represented inmournful images of cemetery sculptures, doleful people with bent heads,dead soldiers and their personal belongings, abandoned battlefields andtrenches. Of course, the featured images do not imply that a given albumwill*either musically or lyrically*focus exclusively on Europe’s death. / /

Most apoliteic bands combine the three Europe-centred themes, although

each theme does have its specific graphic representation. The German band Darkwood has its own trilogy that deals with the‘struggle of Europe’ (see Figure 1). The first part is entitled In the Fields,67 andits cover features a bas-relief of a sorrowful woman kneeling on one knee,her bent head in one hand and a flower in the other. The cover of the secondpart, Heimat & Jugend (Homeland and Youth),68 features an image from aBelgian graveyard. The third part, Flammende Welt (World in Flames),69 hason its cover another bas-relief, this one depicting a military medicpresumably serving with the Axis forces (he wears a steel M35 helmet)holding his fallen or badly injured comrade. Flammende Welt opens with the solemnly ominous instrumental track ‘ForEurope’, and eventually concludes with the song ‘In Ruinen’, whichundoubtedly alludes to Evola’s work Gli uomini e le rovine (literally ‘themen and the ruins’, but usually translated into English as Men among theRuins), published in 1953,70 thus anticipating his 1961 Cavalcare la tigre.Henryk Vogel, the man behind Darkwood, comments: ‘the open end ‘‘InRuins’’ is not just a state after the struggle of Europe but also a darkpremonition of what is to come. . . . In the last song [In Ruinen], whisperedvocals announce that there is to be a cultural resistance*which is necessary /

not only for Europe.’71 In another commentary on the song, Vogel pondersthe post-war development of Europe and argues that ‘they decided for the

Ian Read of the British band Fire Ice replies to the question of whether hestill believes in Europe: ‘The whole world is rapidly becoming all the same andthis is painfully obvious in Europe which is rapidly losing any essence it hadof old. In fact, this spirit only remains in certain special people who foster it.’73 For fascists, ‘a secret Europe’ is hidden in the interregnum, while theEurope of the ‘deadly’ liberal democratic order and of ‘homogenizing’multicultural society triumphs. Those who feel devastated by the allegedloss of an old Europe of aristocratic hierarchy, organic ethnic-culturalcommunity, sacrifice and heroism have nothing for it but to ‘retreat intothe forest’ and find the answer to the current situation there.

He walked to the forest, to the lair of the wolf

Said: ‘I’m looking for Europe, I’ll tell you the truth.’ Some find it in a flag, some in the beat of a drum Some with a book, and some with a gun Some in a kiss, and some on the march But if you’re looking for Europe, best look in your heart.74

References to Ernst Jünger are everywhere in the texts and images of

apoliteic music. At least two Neo-Folk bands dedicated their albums to theGerman writer: Sagittarius (Die Große Marina),75 and Lady Morphia (Recitalsto Renewal).76 The latter album features a track called ‘The Retreat into the

Forest’ in which a male singer recites an extract from the English translationof Jünger’s Der Waldgang. In 2001 the German label Thaglasz, which evolvedfrom a Death in June fan club, released the truly pan-European three-LPcompilation entitled Der Waldgänger.77 As might be expected, most of thetracks are named after Jünger’s novels and essays, and some have titles thatreflect a certain elaboration of the ideas expressed in his above-mentionedessay: This Morn’ Omina’s ‘Innere Emigration’ (inner emigration), Luft-waffe’s ‘A Solitary Order’ and Von Thronstahl’s thought-provoking ‘Wald-gang & Apoliteia’. Von Thronstahl, whose music, in Klumb’s own words, ‘reflects the longingfor the true European identity and soul’, ‘our secret home that is Europa’,78demonstrates the most acute perspicacity regarding ‘metapolitical fascism’.One of the band’s tracks is called ‘Interregnum’ and it is featured on the splitalbum Pessoa/Cioran,79 dedicated to Fernando Pessoa and Emil Cioran.Pessoa was a Portuguese modernist poet who blended ‘an elite nationalisticsentiment, which favoured authoritarian leaders, with certain strains ofavant-garde poetics and anticlerical mysticism’.80 Although sometimessarcastically critical of Salazar’s Estado Novo (especially after it outlawedsecret organizations like the Freemasons and Rosicrucians), Pessoa actuallyembraced it and, in 1936, a year after his death, the government republishedsome poems from his Mensagem (Message) (1933) to celebrate the anniver-sary of the regime.81 Cioran was a Romanian-born philosopher who, in thecourse of the 1930s, sympathized with both the Italian and German fascistregimes, as well as being close to the Romanian fascist movement IronGuard, also known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael.82 The leader ofthe Iron Guard, Corneliu Codreanu, was also honoured with a specialdouble-CD compilation, Codreanu: Eine Erinnerung an den Kampf (Codreanu:a reminiscence of the struggle),83 that featured many Neo-Folk and MartialIndustrial artists. Thematic compilations are important media for the expression of theidea of Europe in the interregnum. Musical tributes to individuals (often

77 Various Artists, Der Waldgänger (Hanover: Thaglasz 2001).

78 Thorn, ‘Von Thronstahl interview’.79 Von Thronstahl/The Days of the Trumpet Call, Pessoa/Cioran (Sintra: Terra Fria 2004). The Days of the Trumpet Call is a side project of Von Thronstahl member Raymond Plummer.80 Darlene J. Sadlier, An Introduction to Fernando Pessoa: Modernism and the Paradoxes of Authorship (Gainesville: University Press of Florida 1998), 46.81 Ibid., 151. See also José Barreto, ‘Salazar and the New State in the writings of Fernando Pessoa’, Portuguese Studies, vol. 24, no. 2, 2008, 168/214; and Jim Hicks, ‘The fascist imaginary in Pessoa and Pirandello’, Centennial Review, vol. 42, no. 2, 1998, 309/32.82 Marta Petreu, An Infamous Past: E. M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee 2005). It should be noted, however, that Cioran later repented his fascist past.83 Various Artists, Codreanu: Eine Erinnerung an den Kampf (Andria, Puglia: Oktagön 2001).450 Patterns of Prejudice

genuine icons for both neo-fascists and ‘metapolitical fascists’), such as

Ernst Jünger, Corneliu Codreanu, Julius Evola,84 Leni Riefenstahl,85 ArnoBreker,86 and Friedrich Hielscher,87 reveal that these figures*in one way or /

another associated with fascism*are true exponents of the Europe now

/

dead and, by contributing their pieces to these compilations, apoliteic artists

reconfirm their allegiance to the principles of ‘organic Europa’. Thesentiment and perception of the interregnum is, perhaps, best describedin Death in June’s ‘Runes and Men’ (another allusion to Evola’s Gli uominie le rovine):

Then my loneliness closes in

So, I drink a German wine And drift in dreams of other lives And greater times.88

The specific stylistic expression of the theme of the interregnum lies

outside the realm of music itself. While one may rightfully consider that theimages of ruins featured on album covers and/or booklets refer to the themeof Europe’s death, it seems more reasonable*given Evola’s overwhelming /

popularity among apoliteic artists*to link such images to the theme of the /

interregnum. The same applies to images of forests. Of course, when artists

illustrate their albums with such images (sometimes the artists themselvesare portrayed on them), it is possible to conclude that they simply like forests.One can also interpret forests as symbols of enduring organic rootednessand/or voluntary dissociation from modernity’s stunning decadence anddecay. Both explanations are legitimate and most likely correct in manycases. However, the legacy of Jünger, whose ghost haunts the Neo-Folk/Martial Industrial scene, cannot be ignored; thus, the images of forests may

84 Various Artists, Cavalcare la Tigre (Dresden: Eis und Licht 1998).

85 Various Artists, Riefenstahl (Duisberg: Verlag und Agentur Werner Symanek 1996). Verlag und Agentur Werner Symanek (VAWS) is also a publishing house known for producing radical right-wing and ‘historical’ (revisionist) books.86 Various Artists, Breker (Duisberg: Verlag und Agentur Werner Symanek 2002). Arno Breker was a German sculptor who, according to Alfred Rosenberg, realized in his work the ‘mighty momentum and will power’ (Wucht und Willenhaftigkeit) of the new era. See Caroline Fetscher, ‘Why mention Arno Breker today? The work of the Nazi sculptor is on exhibit’, The Atlantic Times, August 2006, available online at www.atlantic-times.com/archive_detail.php?recordID602 (viewed 13 August 2009).87 Various Artists, Wir Rufen deine Wölfe (St Koloman, Austria: Ahnstern 2007). Friedrich Hielscher was a German poet and philosopher who formulated a mystical concept of the German nation in Das Reich (1931). Although he sympathized with the Nazis in the 1920s, he moved to an explicitly anti-Nazi (though not anti-fascist) position prior to Hitler’s ‘seizure of power’.88 Death in June, ‘Runes and Men’, on Brown Book (London: New European Recordings 1987). ANTON SHEKHOVTSOV 451

very well be alluding to the idea of the ‘retreat into the forest’ that signifiesexistence during the interregnum. The idea of the rebirth (palingenesis) of Europe is an important integralelement of Europe-centred apoliteic music. This notion implies that, despiteEurope’s death, followed by an indefinite interregnum during which the‘aristocrats of the soul’ are forced to undertake the Waldgang, a fairy (or,rather, eerie) Europe of ‘metapolitical fascists’ will inevitably be reborn. TheGerman band Belborn inserted this idea in metaphorical form into a songcalled ‘Phoenix’:

In dieser kalten Welt aus Eis In this cold world of ice

Sind wir das Feuer das bewahrt We are the fire that keeps Die Wahrheit in des Wesens Kern The truth in the essential seed Den Schöpfungsgeist in Wort und Tat. The creative spirit in word and deed. Vogel aus der Götter Hand Bird from the gods’ own hands Hebe uns empor Raises us upwards Setze die Welt in Brand.89 Sets the world on fire.

Reflecting on Europe’s ‘spiritual rebirth’ in an interview with the

Romanian magazine Letters from the Nuovo Europae, Belborn, however,denied Europe’s death, maintaining that she was only sleeping: ‘No needto give birth to something again that was never dead! Europa is onlysleeping at the moment because the sandman was and is too busy. EUROPE 90AWAKE!!!’ In any case, both ideas*Europe’s rebirth and her awake- /

ning*are mythological metaphors that reveal the palingenetic thrust of

/

apoliteic music. Troy Southgate’s band Seelenlicht conveys this by quoting

Hermann Hesse’s Demian (1960) on the inlay cover of their album Gods andDevils: ‘The bird struggles out of the egg. The egg is the world. Whoeverwants to be born, must first destroy a world.’91 Besides the similarity of thebird metaphors in these texts from Belborn’s and Seelenlicht’s albums, bothof them point to the death of the actual order that will usher in a new one. Inthis context, the required demise is not of ‘organic Europa’ but of the present‘McWorld’ of liberal democracy. This connotation of the notion of palingen-esis is effectively articulated by Howard Williams in his article on ImmanuelKant’s employment of the terms ‘metamorphosis’ and ‘palingenesis’: ‘Wherea palingenetic change takes place, the existing structure takes on a wholly

89 Belborn, ‘Phoenix’, on Seelenruhe/Phoenix (London: World Serpent 2000). The English

translation is by Belborn.90 ‘New heroic times ask for new heroic models’ (interview with Holger Fiala of Belborn), Letters from the Nuovo Europae, October 2000, previously on the Belborn website at www.belborn.de/INTRODUCTION/INTERVIEWS/DAN/dan.html (no longer available).91 Quoted on Seelenlicht, Gods and Devils (Northampton: Cold Spring 2008).452 Patterns of Prejudice

inappropriate guise, which is out of keeping with the true nature of theorganism. Here the birth of a new structure can only take place with thecompleted death of the old.’92 Thus, it is not a coincidence that, for example, the US band Luftwaffeassociates palingenesis with Kalki, a Hindu goddess who is to end thepresent age (Kali Yuga) of decadence and decay, in ‘Kalki’s Army’:

We’ll tear this world to shreds

We’ll rip your world to shreds Your corporations will burn Your institutions will burn Your churches will burn Your flag will burn You will burn!. . . Within the Meta-Kronosphere This moment is decried You would have thought Your actions were your own But history has moved your hand Now history has given us this day The dark ages are over Our age is come93

The association of palingenesis with Kalki can be traced back to the writingsof the French Nazi mystic Maximini Portaz, better known as Savitri Devi.During the years of the Third Reich she actively propagated a belief thatHitler was an avatar of Kalki, destined to crush ‘the combined dark ageforces of Jewry, Marxism, and international capitalism’.94 The impact ofDevi’s writings on neo-Nazism as well as ‘metapolitical fascism’ isconsiderable. The German apoliteic band Turbund Sturmwerk cites her TheLightning and the Sun (1958) on the back cover of their eponymous album:‘Never mind how bloody the final crash may be! . . . We are waiting for it[and for] the triumph of all those men who, throughout centuries and today,have never lost the vision of the everlasting Order, decreed by the Sun . . .’95This ‘leitmotif’*of course, not always a result of the adoption of Devi’s /

(c)ravings*recurs repeatedly in the lyrics and interviews of apoliteic artists.

/

Henryk Vogel, for instance, assumes that ‘it’s possible that everything will

crumble to dust and a new generation will rise from the ashes of thematerialistic system to install a new order of splendour and light’.96 Interestingly enough, the idea of Europe’s rebirth also reveals itselfthrough the names of the labels that release*almost exclusively*apoliteic / /

music. In 1981 Douglas Pearce founded New European Recordings, whose

discography includes the albums of his band (Death in June), as well as otheracts like Boyd Rice and Friends, FireIce, TeHÔM and Strength throughJoy.97 In 2002 the Belgian label Neuropa Records was established to releasealbums by such bands as Toroidh, Horologium, Un Défi d’Honneur (alsoknown as A Challenge of Honour), Levoi Pravoi, Oda Relicta and others. It is worth noting that the word ‘palingenesis’ itself gained currency in theapoliteic milieu. What is even more important is that it is interpreted byconscientious fans in a ‘metapolitical fascist’ sense, even if the term does notactually appear. See, for example, a review of the instrumental track‘Palingenesis’, composed by the Swedish Martial Industrial band Arditi,for the flavour both of this kind of intuitive apoliteic interpretation and ofMartial Industrial music:

‘Palingenesis’ begins with bombastic drumming that immediately ignites the

soul. The drums echo forth from the speakers with incredible definition and depth. A snare drum joins the thundering kettle drums adding dimension and lends a definitive martial tone to the song. Solemn synths contribute a sense of atmosphere that is quite cold and resigned. ‘Palingenesis’ paints a mental picture of soldiers lined up ready to march forth into battle, resigned to their fates, and bound by honor and blood.98

H.E.R.R. reproduces almost the same ‘mental picture’ in their song ‘A

New Rome’:

Marching through the rain

We are soldiers again We are raised from the fields With our swords and our shields . . . A city to win With the sun on our skin

www.darkroom-magazine.it/ita/105/Intervista.php?r627 (viewed 13 August 2009).97 ‘Strength through Joy’ in German is ‘Kraft durch Freude’, the name of the Nazis’ state- controlled leisure organization. See Shelley Baranowski, Strength through Joy: Consumerism and Mass Tourism in the Third Reich (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 2004).98 Malahki Thorn, ‘Arditi*/spirit of sacrifice’, Heathen Harvest (webzine), 27 April 2005, at www.heathenharvest.com/article.php?story20050427093041822 (viewed 13 August 2009).454 Patterns of Prejudice

We failed in the past

But today she will last.99

Military imagery is unsurprisingly one of the most widely employed stylistic

elements of apoliteic music. When such acts and artists as Death in June,Boyd Rice, Dernière Volonté, Les Joyaux de la Princesse and Krepulec dressin military or quasi-military uniforms for performances or promotionalphotographs, they emphasize their musical and lyrical image as ‘culturalsoldiers’ who keep the flag flying in the fight against ‘the age of decay anddemocrazy [sic]’, as the title of one of Von Thronstahl’s songs has it.

Eschewing profane politics for spiritual warfare

In 1996 the German New Right weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit published ashort article on new musical trends.

Germany became the centre of a musical culture rooted in the anti-modern

currents of the ‘Gothic’ . . . scene. Romanticizing pathos and archaic might (archaische Gewalt), the music ranges from, at one end, classically inflected melodies to, at the other, rough Industrial. This mixture contains an explosive force, of which those in the musical mainstream who stand guard over the old tradition should beware. If the mythical and irrational, as well as the desire for anti-Enlightenment introspection and living transcendence, find a voice in youth culture, the aesthetic consensus of the West will be broken.100

This article was possibly the very first attempt to get Neo-Folk/MartialIndustrial artists involved in the ‘right-wing Gramscian’ struggle for culturalhegemony. From then on, Junge Freiheit has been publishing interviews withapoliteic artists and enthusiastic album reviews. In France, however, thereception of Neo-Folk/Martial Industrial music by New Right thinkers hasbeen ambivalent. For example, the leader of the French New Right, Alain deBenoist, who actually enjoys folk music, finds it disturbing when folk artists(like Death in June) add ‘elements of Nazi subculture’ to their music, andconsiders them provocateurs. In his turn, Christian Bouchet, the founder ofNouvelle Résistance (New Resistance), embraces what I am calling apoliteicmusic, as opposed to White Noise.101 The Russian New Right, associatedfirst and foremost with Aleksandr Dugin’s neo-Eurasianist organizations,especially the Evraziiskii Soyuz Molodezhi (ESM, Eurasian Youth Union),takes a favourable view of apoliteic music, and a leader of the local ESM

99 H.E.R.R., ‘A New Rome’, on The Winter of Constantinople (Northampton: Cold Spring

branch in Kazan even owns a small company (Arcto Promo) that organizesmusic festivals*called ‘Finis Mundi’102*that sometimes feature apoliteic / /

bands. The British case is more straightforward as Troy Southgate, the leaderof the British New Right and the founder of the National Anarchist group, isan apoliteic artist himself. He is also the editor of the New Right journalSynthesis: Journal du Cercle de la Rose Noire,103 in which he publishes, inter alia,his reviews of Neo-Folk/Martial Industrial albums. Significantly, all the movements and groups that, in one way or another,turn to Neo-Folk/Martial Industrial bands in an attempt to infiltrate certainyouth subcultures are metapolitical, rather than political. These organiza-tions then eventually find they have more in common with the musicalbands than with genuinely political parties, movements or even violent neo-fascist groups. Similar to the apoliteic musicians, who ‘function as a kind ofmetapolitical reference point for those people who find themselves disillu-sioned with the state of the modern world’,104 these New Right groups focuson the cultural terrain in their attempt to influence society and make it moresusceptible to undemocratic and authoritarian ways of thinking. Of course, there are exceptions. Troy Southgate was once a member of theNF, but he left the organization long before he started participating inmusical ‘metapolitical fascist’ projects. Anthony (Tony) Wakeford of SolInvictus was also a member of the NF and, in 2007, he wrote a repentantmessage for his website stating that he had had no interest in or sympathyfor the ideas of the NF for about twenty years, and that joining theorganization had probably been ‘the worse decision of [his] life and one [he]very much regret[ted]’.105 Furthermore, the possibility that a few apoliteicmusicians are members of radical or extreme right-wing political organiza-tions can’t be ruled out, but it is crucial that such membership be kept secretand not paraded. The reason why apoliteic artists avoid involvement in outright right-wingpolitical activities does not so much reflect concern for their reputations(although they do value them), as the lack of correspondence between

102 For Arcto Promo, see its website at http://retro-future.ru (viewed 14 August 2009).103 For Synthesis, see its website at www.rosenoire.org (viewed 14 August 2009).104 Thorn, ‘H.E.R.R. interview’.105 Tony Wakeford, ‘A message from Tony’, 14 February 2007, available on the Tursa website at www.tursa.com/message.html (viewed 14 August 2009). Nowhere, however, does Wakeford repudiate his homage to Evola (the titles of two Sol Invictus songs, namely ‘Against the Modern World’ and ‘Amongst the Ruins’, directly allude to Evola’s works Rivolta contro il mondo moderno and Gli uomini e le rovine), or explain why his ongoing musical project L’Orchestre Noir was named after the 1985 documentary film on the Belgian paramilitary extreme right-wing groups Vlaamse Militanten Orde (Flemish Militant Order) and Front de la Jeunesse (Youth Front). See also Stewart Home, ‘Danger! Neo-Folk ‘‘musician’’ Tony Wakeford of Sol Invictus is still a fascist creep!’, 28 July 2008, available online at www.stewarthomesociety.org/wakeford.html (viewed 14 August 2009).456 Patterns of Prejudice

‘spiritual warfare’ and ‘profane politics’. For instance, members of the

Russian Neo-Folk act Ritual Front, who define the concept of the band as‘Tradition, antiquity, modernity, Gods, death, life, war, struggle, warrior’spath’, at the same time disdainfully state: ‘We are neither an Oi-band norparticipants in the skinhead underground who are engaged in politicsdirectly!’106 Both radical right-wing political parties and racist/neo-Nazigroupuscules also seem contemptuous of ‘spiritual revivalists’, who wouldmost likely refuse to play at campaigning concerts or to call for getting rid of‘racial enemies’. The question, however, remains as to whether apoliteic bands can functionas instruments for popularizing and promoting genuine fascist ideas, theadoption of which can eventually lead their listeners to contribute to thepolitical cause, even if such bands*perhaps honestly*do not mean to. The / /

answer, beyond any doubt, is ‘yes’. Music is a powerful instrument of

(mis)education: the idealization of fascism, while over-emphasizing its‘values’ and deliberately concealing (and even normalizing) its crimes andgenocidal practices throughout the interwar period and the Second WorldWar, effectively contributes to a misreading of modern history, especially byconscientious fans. We can only conjecture as to whether an individual willbe satisfied with just ‘drifting in dreams of other lives and greater times’ orwill eventually become involved in attempts at the practical implementationof those ‘dreams’. Censoring or banning apoliteic music, however, is undesirable in ademocratic society as well as ultimately impossible. ‘Metapolitical fascists’are keen on using cryptic language and codified symbolic metaphors. Onwhat grounds could one ban artists for using the words like ‘apoliteia’,‘Waldgang’, ‘interregnum’ or ‘palingenesis’? Or pictures of runes/ruins?The sounds of ‘the orchestra of a great battle’? Eurocentric imagery? On theother hand, how effective are civil society protests or boycotts? Apparentlythese activities only make martyrs of apoliteic artists and strengthen*if only /

in the eyes of their fans*their image as righteous fighters for an ‘organic

/

Europe’. In the context of this problem, which itself requires its own discussion, itmay be interesting and informative to learn the opinion of Eric Roger of thepopular French band Gaë Bolg, which is seen as part of the Neo-Folk/Martial Industrial scene, but cannot be considered apoliteic.

Most of the promoters in the [Neo-Folk/Martial Industrial] scene have organized,

or continue to organize, concerts of the right-wing bands. Some of these promoters are ‘dodgy’, while the others are completely ‘clean’, they’re just interested in music and don’t care about political issues. How is it possible to distinguish between ‘clean’ people (oh, I hate the word ‘clean’, it has a bad smell

of witch-hunting!) and the ‘unclean’, if you don’t know people personally? Or

should we refuse all the concerts organized by people who have ever organised ‘bad’ concerts in their life? If we (I mean the bands who are against the right-wing ideology) categorically refuse to play at the festivals that feature right-wing bands, don’t we give them more space? In this case, our withdrawal would only help them propagate their ideology, isn’t it nonsense? Isn’t it better to stay in order to affirm our opposition? But if I say that, isn’t it somewhat hypocritical? Isn’t it a sort of compromising? Isn’t it an excuse we find to accept our ‘tolerance’, the same tolerance we loudly condemn in other cases? At the same time, I really and deeply think that it’s important that we stay and that we don’t leave an empty place to the right-wingers.107

Anton Shekhovtsov is a Ph.D. student in political science at Sevastopol

National Technical University in the Ukraine. His thesis is an examination ofnew radical right-wing parties in Europe. He has published articles inTotalitarian Movements and Political Religions, Religion Compass, RussianReview, Politologychnyi visnyk and Naukovyi visnyk ‘Gileya’. He is also a co-author of the Russian-language book Radikal’nyi russkii natsionalizm: struk-tury, idei, litsa (Moscow: Sova 2009) (Radical Russian nationalism: structures,ideas, persons).

107 This extract is a small part of an interview that I conducted with Eric Roger via e-mail, 26/31 March 2009.